Wilbur Smith

“I read all of Rider Haggard's books. For me he had the romance of Africa with a little bit of mysticism. I'm delighted to be looked on as his heir and be categorised as an adventure novelist...”

“Herbert, my father, was born in Britain but went out to Africa in his teens to join his father and built up an 18,000-acre ranch in what was then Northern Rhodesia, providing work for the lo...”

“I hate politics. I like to write about it, but to get involved in it, to try and make a lot of ignorant people do what you want them to do, waste of time. Go and write a book. It's more impo...”

“I believe that a healthy body breeds a healthy mind. I am 74 years old now and my wife, Niso, is 38 years younger than me. She absolutely insists that I take regular exercise with her.”

“I shot my first lion at the age of 14 when a pride threatened my father's livestock while he was away on holiday.”

“My mother-in-law speaks not a word of English. I speak not a word of Tajiki. So I smile at her ingratiatingly and she fixes me with a beady eye.”

“Every time one of my books sells a million copies in paperback, Pan Macmillan gives me a gold statuette of Pan. I have about 20 of them.”

“For the past few years my fans have made it very clear that they would like to read my novels and revisit my family of characters faster than I can write them. For them, I am willing to make...”

“I used to own an island in the Seychelles and had a big boat there and one day I came across some Somali pirates who were passing by on their way to re-provision their boat. They didn't even...”

“I think one of the most poignant things is unrequited love and loneliness.”

“I know it's politically incorrect but I enjoy things like the kick boxing and cock fighting.”

“The first story I ever sold was to 'Argosy' magazine, which no longer exists. That issue also contained work by several other more celebrated writers, like Ray Bradbury - so I felt I had at...”

“Usually halfway through a book I have a serious depression, so I go on safari on my ranch in South Africa, or fishing off my island in the Seychelles. When I come back and re-read it, I thin...”

“I'm a feminist. The women in my books in recent years have been powerful characters and I love to see a woman with a cute bottom walking past.”

“I think money is essential to happiness and right now I wouldn't want to be anyone other than Wilbur Smith - I've had a fantastic life, rewarded far more heavily than I deserve. Maybe I'd li...”

“When I vacate this sack of old bones I won't care what you do with it. Bury or burn it but don't make much fuss.”

“I wanted to be a great white hunter, a prospector for gold, or a slave trader. But then, when I was eight, my parents sent me to a boarding school in South Africa. It was the equivalent of a...”

“People don't really know themselves until they're 30. Like most people nowadays, I went to university, got a degree and wandered for a bit. I trained to be a chartered accountant, which I di...”